The Training using Online Tools for Effectiveness and Measurability (TOTEM) project is an independent, safe and secure MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) containing tools on secure use of the Internet. The platform is meant to support trainers and trainees online to assist before-, during- and after offline trainings.

The project will enhance the capacity of human rights defenders and journalist to work more securely and assist them to do their work in more effective ways.
The target groups often face great risks while doing their work to promote human rights, TOTEM will enable them to work mitigate those risks as much as possible.

– TOTEM will extend the training horizon from the few days of actual offline training to a more continuous experience. The online training tool will feature a dashboard where trainers can monitor retention and have secure contact with trainees who might have questions.
– The TOTEM project is an online platform aimed at a worldwide audience.

– By using TOTEM, journalists, activists and human rights defenders can learn how to work more safely, reducing their fear and anxiety and thus increase their efficiency. Through their work the general public is empowered and better able to make informed decisions about their future.
– Users of the TOTEM MOOC can have online profiles that show what courses and modules they have passed, if they so wish to do. This introduces almost game-like concepts to digital security trainings where people can compete with each other in least amount of mistakes, most completed modules, etc. Users can also use their profiles to prove to others that they indeed are knowledgeable on (certain areas of) digital security, which is something that is otherwise often hard to find out.

Curricula for the platform will be adapted, developed and produced in co-development with trainers using the latest insights from the field to be most effective. This will be done by organizing sprint sessions to which key trainers in the digital security field will be invited to contribute.

The TOTEM project is the first of its kind for digital security trainings. Its innovation lies in its new approach to digital security trainings by introducing an online, independent platform. Using gamification elements and automated interactions an even higher retention rate will be possible. It also allows anyone around the world to take a digital security training on their own time, at their own pace, making these kinds of trainings available to a much wider audience. By building on top of and extending existing open-source online classroom tools we will prevent duplication. By releasing the tools as open source software themselves, we allow for sustainability and change beyond the time and scope of the original project.

Goals

The goals of the platform are
– To improve basic understanding of Internet security and related tools for journalists, activists and human rights defenders by creating a safe online classroom environment.
– Build a safe MOOC based on existing open source software (open EdX) that is co-developed with- and usable for digital training organizations, individual trainers and students.
– After 24 months; 5000 signed up users for the MOOC, 30 trainers using the MOOC before, during and after their trainings

– Sustainability through collaboration to continue the availability of the platform once this project is completed.